1 Background

In 2003, as a component of Australia’s National Biotechnology Strategy, DAFF released its Biotechnology Strategy for Agriculture, Food and Fibre¹. The National Biotechnology Strategy is scheduled to sunset on 30 June 2008. It would therefore be expected that the Biotechnology Strategy for Agriculture, Food and Fibre would also sunset at the same time. In November 2005, the National Biotechnology Roundtable (consisting of Australian Government Ministers and State and Territory Premiers/Ministers and senior officials) directed the Biotechnology Liaison Committee (BLC) to build on its work on Australian Biotechnology Capabilities² by focusing on the development of a Vision for agribiotech over the next 5 to 10 years.

During 2006 BA and the BLC held agribiotech consultations with industry, researchers and state and territory governments, through the respective departments responsible for primary industry in South Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia and Victoria. In addition, the Tasmanian Government contributed information from its concurrent development of the State’s biotechnology strategy.

In September 2007, ACIL Tasman was commissioned by DAFF and BA to use the outcomes of the consultation process and findings from its review of the literature to develop a draft 10 year vision for agricultural biotechnology in the Australian economy and a strategic plan to achieve it. This report presents that draft vision and strategy and the thinking underpinning its development.

1.1 The Australian science and innovation system

The Australian science and innovation system involves a complex interaction between a number of funding purchasers (funding sources), which purchase a range of research and development (R&D) services from a range of providers (see Appendix A).

Biotechnology is pervasive in the Australian science and innovation system; this was a strong message from many of our consultations. Agricultural biotechnology is an important subset of the innovation system that is difficult to consider independently from the wider system. An important source of new innovation for agriculture is from other industries, in particular health sector innovations. Also important for agricultural innovation are innovations in other technologies, particularly information and communications (ICT).

Australia’s national innovation system is currently the focus of a major review, chaired by Dr Terry Cutler, which is scheduled to report by 31 July 2008 (see Appendix A). The Cutler review follows on from a high level inquiry into Public Support for Science and Innovation (Productivity Commission, 2007), which identified a number of problems in the science and innovation system that are relevant to this report. The relevant Productivity Commission (PC) findings and recommendations are outlined in Appendix A.

The high level nature of the PC’s review meant that issues of relevance to particular aspects of science and technology, such as biotechnology, were not considered in any detail, though a number of submissions raised important issues, in particular:

• A joint submission to the inquiry by eight cooperative research centres³ (CRCs), expressed concern that the regulatory pathway for technology containing a genetically modified organism is a major impediment to successful commercialisation. The submission argued that while the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR) and the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) maintain that their processes can take place in parallel, in reality they must take place consecutively.
• The Institute of Public Affairs expressed concerns that the moratoria on GM crops, which have been in place until recently in a majority of states and territories, is restricting research into agricultural biotechnology, forcing commercialisation trials off-shore, losing business opportunities, and threatening the viability of growers.

1.2 The brief

The project terms of reference required ACIL Tasman to develop a draft ’10 year vision and strategic direction for agricultural biotechnology’ in a report to DAFF and BA which will ultimately be used to seek endorsement by Australia’s State and Territory Governments.

In developing this report ACIL Tasman was required to engage with a wide range of high level stakeholders (BA, relevant State and Territory Departments and National industry bodies, and research organisations).

1.3 How we approached the task

The following extract from an OECD evaluation of the safety of food derived from biotechnology, highlights the complexity of the task of developing a vision and strategy for biotechnology:

The consideration of the safety of foods and food components derived from biotechnology involves several continua: from older to newer biotechnology; from traditional techniques to the latest techniques based on molecular and cellular biology; from simple to complex products; from a well-known history of exposure and safety of use to areas of less knowledge of the trait in different organisms; from whole organisms to specific chemical compounds or substances; and from simple to complex assessment approaches. For a rational and practical approach to ensuring safe use, these continua can be separated into manageable pieces, facilitating the description of the concepts or principles of safety. Accordingly, scientific principles and procedures should be applied in a flexible fashion, taking into account the knowledge of: the characteristics of the newly introduced trait(s); potential dietary exposure; the preparation and processing of the foods or food components; nutritional considerations; and toxicological aspects⁴.

The OECD extract reflects many comments made during the extensive consultation phase of this project, such as:

• How will biotechnology be defined for this strategy?
• Biotechnology is pervasive and is used in almost every scientific, industrial, environmental and agricultural endeavour.
• Biotechnology has been used in agricultural and food processing technologies for many centuries.
• Most biotechnology applications do not attract significant interest or concern from consumers.
• Biotechnology embraces a wide range of techniques, of which only a small subset involves genetic modification.

To deal with the many facets of biotechnology raised by the OECD and our consultations, the focus for this vision and strategy is preparing for the adoption of cutting edge /new horizon/next generation (GM and non-GM) technologies. These technologies are yet to become common usage in Australian agriculture.

In addition to focusing this vision and strategy on the innovation horizon, ACIL Tasman considers that there is considerable merit in extending its coverage down the value chain, to cover food processing, forestry, fibre and biofuels.

Current international thinking (for example, at the OECD) sees biotechnology permeating the economy. Because biotechnology is increasingly converging with other technologies, care should be taken to ensure that biotechnology policy is not developed in silos. This is particularly important for policy developed for agricultural biotechnology and industrial biotechnology. There are numerous examples where agriculture is the source of the biomass used to produce industrial products, such as chemicals and plastics.

Consultation with stakeholders has been a crucial component of the research in this project. In the first instance ACIL Tasman, with the assistance of DAFF, BA and the BLC, developed a short issues paper to help stimulate discussion. This issues paper was then circulated to stakeholders, who were invited to discuss the concepts with ACIL Tasman consultants.

Consultation also involved a series of one-on-one meetings (some face to face and some by phone) and two roundtables with senior representatives of stakeholder organisations. Details of the organisations invited, and their representatives who attended these meetings, can be found in Appendix A.

1.4 Who is the vision and strategy for?

Primarily this vision and strategy has been prepared to inform Government on ways the application of biotechnologies to agriculture can be optimised. To do this, the following aims were established:

• focus attention on the potential benefits to Australia of current and future applications of biotechnology in agriculture (including non-GMO technology and extending beyond GM crops)
• identify the applications that could be best developed in Australia and those reliant on imported technology
• determine the respective roles of government and the private sector in the development, promotion and adoption of agricultural biotechnology
• identify the need for Federal, State and Territory government involvement, and appropriate mechanisms for such involvement
• determine how to promote the acceptance and uptake of beneficial applications of these technologies by Australian agriculture over a 10 year timeframe.

Many of the challenges and opportunities for agricultural biotechnology are not unique to this field. As noted above, the PC review of public support for science and innovation (PC, 2007) identified a number of generic science and innovation system issues relevant to agricultural biotechnology.

It is also likely that the Cutler review of the national innovation system will identify improvements to the Australian innovation system that will benefit agricultural biotechnology. This paper has focused on those issues unique to agricultural biotechnology, but has also considered a range of issues of a more generic nature that are also likely to be addressed in the Cutler review.

It is against this back ground that the vision and strategy for biotechnology applications to agriculture are conceived.

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